When I was a child, Monday was ‘Wash Day’. Not Laundry Day - that was fancy talk. In our house, it was wash day.
On the back porch of our tiny house in a little town in Washington State, was a wringer washing machine. That’s not a brand name, it describes the two rubber rollers that squeeze water out of clothes fed between them when turning. In the back yard was a weathered wooden bench, turned gray with age and water. Stored in the garage out beyond that were two big galvanized tubs, one round and one square, with handles on the sides. This was the necessary equipment to do the washing.
On Mondays, the wash machine came in first. It was positioned in the center of the little kitchen’s linoleum floor and filled with very hot water from the kitchen sink via a rubber hose that fitted over the hot water faucet.
Next came the heavy wooden bench, placed between the wash machine and the sink. Both of the wash tubs were brought in and placed on it and also filled with hot water from the sink.
Into the water in the square tub, Mom swirled Mrs Stewarts bluing, until the water was bluer than the sky. This helped make the white things whiter and colors brighter.
Into the round tub went Purex bleach, enough to scent the water and your hands.
Then came the first load of clothes. With three kids who played outside all day, the pile was big. A measure of White King laundry soap let the clothes be agitated in hot soapy water for 15 minutes. Then the wringer that topped the electric washing machine would be swiveled to the round tub and the clothes dipped out of the hot water with tongs and fed through it into the bleach water. clothes with grass stains would get a session on the good old fashioned wash board; scrubbed up and down across those galvanized ridges with Fels Naptha bar soap. The toughest stains soon gave way, and that item joined the others in the bleach water.
After all the clothes were in the bleach water, the next load went into the wash machine. After another 15 minutes, the wringer would swivel and the clothes in the bleach would be fed through the wringer into the bluing.
Then with another swivel of the wringer, the clothes in the wash machine would be fed into the bleach, and another load of ***** clothes started their journey.
All the tubs were full now and it became an assembly line.
When the next 15 min were up, the line went in reverse and the wringer swiveled back and forth as needed. The clothes in the bluing went through the wringer into a large oval wicker basket with handles on each end, ready to be hung with clothes pins on the lines out in the back yard.
The clothes in the bleach went into the bluing and the clothes in the wash machine went into the bleach. Then the washer was loaded again and the process began anew.
This process took most of the day, with the only breaks occurring while the washer did its thing and the two tubs soaked.
Mom used a metal dish pan to make a solution of Argo Starch and water. Things that needed body went into that for a quick dip before being hung up outside, where they became somewhat stiff as they dried. They would need to be sprinkled with warm water and rolled up to dampen evenly before ironing. Most things washed in those days before Perm Press would need to be ironed.
The clotheslines were thin wire cable, strung up in the back yard. One set of four lines were attached to the crossbars of 2 sturdy metal poles, sunk into the ground by the Rhubarb bushes and the hen house (we raised a few chickens) and the other two lines ran from the back porch to the garage wall. Before using them, Mom would wrap a damp rag around the wire and wipe each one from one end to the other to be sure they were clean.
Clothes would then be hung up with spring-type wooden clothes pins, taken from a home made cloth bag sewn over a wire coat hanger, so it could hang on the clothesline and slide along as the clothes were being hung up. There was a certain skill in knowing which clothes hung right-side-up and which went upside-down, as there was no fabric softener in those days and clothes tended to take the shape they hung in.
When all the clothes were hung up, the rubber hose was used in reverse to empty the two tubs and the wash machine into the sink. Then the tubs and bench were taken back to their spots in the garage and the wash machine rolled back onto the back porch. When everything was put away, the wet kitchen floor was mopped dry with a rag mop.
All the neighbors said Mom hung out the cleanest, whitest wash on the block. She was proud of that, though she’d never admit it.
By dusk, it was time to bring all the clothes back in to the house. Sheets and towels were folded and put into dresser drawers. There was no such thing as a linen closet. Pillow cases would later be ironed, but in my family sheets never were. Since perm press didn’t exist yet, the cotton got a bit of a rough feel to it from the wind. I loved crawling in between those rough sheets that smelled of the sun and wind. Over them were 2 quilts. One made by my Grandma and the other by my Mom. They weren’t showpiece designs, just functional and warm with designs that used up bits of fabric left over from past sewing projects.
Towels were also a bit rough and got us dry and massaged at the same time
Living in Southwest Washington, legendary for it rainfall and drizzle, there was many a washday when it was all-hands-on-deck to race out and grab things off the lines as the rain began to fall. On those days lines were attached to built-in hooks back and froth across the kitchen and things were re-hung there. There was also a folding wooden rack that went into the Front Room, which is what we called the Living Room On those rainy days you threaded your way through rows of damp clothes to get to the sink to get a drink of water. No bottled water in those days, but our little town had very good tasting tap water.
Mom’s hands were always red and shiny by the end of the day from reaching into the various waters to fish things out to put through the wringer into the next tub. Everything washed went through that wringer 3 different times.
There was a whole mystique about starched clothing. With no Permanent-Press in the 40’s, and the only way to make a cotton shirt or dress look smart was to starch it. There was skill in knowing the ratio of starch powder to water so the clothes didn’t come out limp when dry or stiff as a board.
Starched clothing needed to be dampened first in order to iron properly. It was called “sprinkling” the clothes. A commonly used sprinkler was a tall soda bottle with a cork-stemmed metal cap with holes in it. You could buy the sprinkler caps at the dime store. This is what Mom used.
We kids were fascinated by the neighbor who took a mouthful of water, pursed her lips and created a misty spray onto the clothes. We practiced it but we never figured out how she did it. Another just dipped her hand into a bowl of water and shook it over the clothes. Pump spray bottles were years away back then. Sprinkled clothes were usually rolled up and left a while to dampen evenly. There was excitement when word got around that rolling up the sprinkled clothes and putting them in the refrigerator for an hour or two produced more even dampening, and you didn’t have to leave them overnight or risk forgetting and finding things dried into a hard ball the next day.
Even more exciting was the advent of the steam iron, which revolutionized the chore. As a kid I used to earn dimes and nickels for ironing hankies (remember handkerchiefs?) and pillowcases for a neighbor. Kleenex didn’t totally replace cloth handkerchiefs until well into the 1950s. I still enjoy ironing today and hate the wrinkled look currently in fashion. I also have a stack of lace trimmed hankies that are now considered vintage.
I still have a soda bottle sprinkler, a clothespin bag on a hanger full of clothespins. I also have an unopened bottle of Mrs. Wright’s Bluing, which hasn’t been on the market in years. It reminds me of other times and other places and how I would love to slip between those sweet smelling, wind-blown sheets one more time.
ljm
This is way too long and not really poetry, but I wrote it for a class and had no place else to put it. Thank you for your forbearance if you read it all.
